Development of bioinks for a 3D bioprintable prostate cancer model

An internally crosslinked alginate/gelatin bioink was developed as a 3D bioprintable model of prostate cancer tissue with tunable micromechanical properties and optimised printability. By controlling the crosslinking kinetics and the timing of culture medium addition while maintaining a constant chemical composition, the hydrogel stiffness was tailored to reproduce the mechanical environment of prostate cancer tissue. Rheological characterisation guided the optimisation of the printing process, demonstrating suitable extrudability and structural recovery for extrusion-based 3D bioprinting. The bioink supported the culture of embedded 22Rv1 prostate cancer cells for up to 10 days, providing a physiologically relevant microenvironment for tumour modelling. The possibility to tune the mechanical properties while preserving the chemical composition makes this platform a promising tool for developing multicellular and mechanically heterogeneous constructs to investigate prostate cancer progression, cell–matrix interactions, and personalised in vitro cancer models.